The Internet has been very good to Major League Baseball

By Bill BriggsSenior Editor

MLB.com sold 19 million baseball tickets online through the end of March for the 2008 season, reaching the level two months ahead of last year’s mark. The web site also topped 1.7 million Opening Day video streams.

MLB Advanced Media LP, the interactive media and Internet company of Major League Baseball, sold more than 19 million tickets online on behalf of the league’s 30 clubs and did so two months sooner than the mark was reached last year.

The tickets were sold at MLB.com, major league baseball’s official e-commerce site and at the individual club sites. During its record-setting 2007 season, in which more than 27 million tickets were sold online, MLB.com sold 14.7 million tickets by the end of March and reached the 19 million ticket mark on May 31.

MLB.com also announced that MLB.TV, its out-of-market video package, delivered a record more than 1.7 million live Opening Day game video streams and added nearly 36,000 individual subscribers during the first two days of games in the U.S. March 31 and April 1. Both figures more than doubled the comparable activities from the same time period in 2007.